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LEX- 

FORI 


HOW TO PREVENT VOTE SELLING, TAX 
DODGING AND MONEY CORNERING. 


/»• 1 - ^ 
r 

r' 


i- I 




THOMAS J. SANDFORD. 


NEW YORK. 
1895. 







Co2)yright 1894 by 
THOMAS J. SAXDFORl). 





PREFACE. 


New York City, Jan. 1st, 1895. 

In the city of Troy, N. Y., eight years ago, I met a civil en¬ 
gineer who talked political economy to me at every opportunity. 
I had some experience as a public speaker, and took an unusual 
interest in the “dismal science.” 

At that time, I thought my ability to answer satisfactorily 
questions pertaining to the science of government, was more than 
ordinary. 

I had frequently met the gentleman referred to in public dis¬ 
cussions. He invariably opposed my views, yet I seemed to win 
the approval of the audiences. 

Time and again the majority of a large organization rejected his 
views and indorsed mine. Yet the civil engineer never lost heart. 
He frequently visited me while in Troy, and argued that his ideas 
were indispensable to the material improvement of this govern¬ 
ment. 

In 1889 I regularly attended the meetings of the various debating 
societies in this city, and there met representatives of every school 
of political economy, including the individualist socialist, 
nationalist, communist, single-taxer, greenbacker, etc. While 
each of these schools advocates ideas more or less good 
they all recommend much that is impracticable. I flatter myself 
that this fact was made clear to the audiences by me, if their plau¬ 
dits meant anything. 

At a “ reformers’ ” meeting in this city I renewed discussion with 
my Trojan antagonist, and received from him a question pertain¬ 
ing to the science of governments which confounded me. The 
point was so cogent that I immediately dismounted my “high 
horse” and became an humble pupil of my Trojan adversary. 

In teaching me political economy he passed nights by the year. 
Finally I saw the connection between this government and his 



4 


LEX FORI. 


theories. As a consequence I am an earnest disciple of the civil 
engineer, and believe in all his remedies. To give my readers 
what I have learned from my preceptor, David Reeves Smith, is 
the purpose of this publication. 

I requested Mr. Smith to write this preface, but he declined in 
the following letter, which with his permission I herewith pub¬ 
lish. 

New Yokk City, June 5th, 1894. 

T. J. Sandfoed, Esq., 

Dear Friend:— In reply to your flattering note of the 
1st inst. asking me to write a preface to your book, I have reluc¬ 
tantly made up my mind to decline, as I feel that I have no talent 
in that direction. I will say, however, that I am very much pleased 
with my success in converting you to the true democratic-republi¬ 
can theory of government. 

The development of the science of government has been moving 
on definite lines since the beginning. 

There is only one right way to do anything, all other ways are 
necessarily wrong in some degree. Fortunately for mankind, 
reason, observation and experience have been steadily improving 
political theories and practices throughout the past. 

In every generation some measure of advancement is discern¬ 
ible, until now it is possible to spe’cify of what the general frame¬ 
work of a perfect form of government must consist. 

In discussing these matters with jmu so persistently I have been 
led on from year to year by your evidently sincere desire to as¬ 
certain the truth, and I am abundantly repaid for any efforts I 
have made by the satisfaction I experience in recognizing that you 
understandingly agree with me in all the most essential points. 

I earnestly hope that your little book will be widely read for the 
good it may do, and that you may have many readers to cheer you 
with the evidences of their appreciation. 

Sincerely your friend, 

David R. Smith. 


AXIOMS. 


1 . All men have an equal right to life, liberty and 
th e JO ursuit of h apjoi?iess, 

2 . All men should be equal before the law. 

3 . The sovereignty of this government should he 
vested in the whole 2 )eo 2 )le, to whom it of natural right 
belongs. 

4 . The government, as an agent of the whole people, 
should exercise its qoowers only with the consent of the 
governed. 

5. In p>roduction we shoxdd strive to exercise as 
much economy of time and labor as possible. 

6 . Every should have the right to pursxie 

whatever vocation he pleases, provided that in so doing 
he affects no person xinjustly. 

7. Public officials should be gyublic servants. 

8 . The income a citizen receives should be in 
direct projoortion to the service he renders the com¬ 
munity. 

9 . Every person engaged in any legal vocation is 
sxqoposed to render the comimmity a service. 

10 . Every man should pay tax or public rent to the 
community, for the wealth he is using, in progjortion to 
the quantity of value he uses. 


6 


LEX FORI. 


11. The laan who economizes should he permitted to 
enjoy the fruits of his economy. 

12. The persons hest (jualified for doing specific 
work cere the persons loho should do such %cork. 

13. Every competent person should he 7 ^e(juired to 
jyroduce ett least as 7nuch as he consumes. 

14. All men should he considered 'innocent until 
proved guilty hy the lav) of the land. 

15. The welfare of the individual should he suh- 
ordinate to that of the community, limited hy the m- 
alienahle natured inghts of individuals. 

16. The higher ownership) is vested, hy nedured right, 
in the whole people. 

17. That act only should he done which results in 
the greatest good to the greatest numher, without in¬ 
vading individual natured rights. 

\%. The views of the majority should edways pre¬ 
vail when individual nedured rights are not invaded. 

19. No man shouhl he deprived of life, liberty or 
property without due process of law. 

The foregoing- sentences are axioms. Some of them 
are known to the law as principles of equity. They 
are generally recognized as self-eyident truths, and 
with the exception of one or two they haye Imt to be 
stated in order to insure their recognition as such. 
The wisdom embodied in them is the result of the 
world’s experience, and they constitute substantially the 
theory of this goyernment. Any statute law Avdiich 
conflicts with these axioms will invariably become a 


LEX FORI. 


7 


dead letter in tlie course of time. A law adverse to 
some of these axioms may be placed on onr statute 
books, but it will ultimately be repealed or ignored. 

Although the axioms are the theory of this govern¬ 
ment, our laws do not conform to them. This theory 
aligns the drift or tendency of our present form of 
government. Time and experience will ultimately 
teach our people how to improve our j)resent social 
structure ; but the adoption of a few ideas herein con¬ 
tained will save our people much bitter and unneces¬ 
sary experience. Nystrom, who developed the final, 
and therefore correct, theory of the form of the least 
resistance for ships, taught the world at once what it 
might have taken generations to learn, groping along 
in the dim light of observation and experience. The 
writer hopes to do for governments what Nystrom did 
for ship building. 

The ideal republic will have on its statute books 
laws which will conform to this theory, and the only 
method by which they can be carried into effect is by 
the adoption of the three principles advocated in 
“ Ownership and Sovereignty.” These are called 
Perpetual Voting, The Death Kate Tax and Just 
Money, and they Avill be found more technically treated 
in that work. 

To elucidate them, as viewed by the writer, is the 
object of this book. The same conclusion set forth in 
“ Ownership and Sovereignty” will be reached in this 
work, but by a different line of argument. 

I am indebted to David Keeves Smith for my con¬ 
ception of the future republic and a view of the lines 
of its future development. 

The theory of this government, as embodied in the 



8 


LEX FORI. 


axioms, is the result of the accumulated wisdom of 
our people. We have found by actual experience, ex¬ 
tending back into the feudal ages and beyond the era 
of the Roman Empire’s supremacy, that these axioms 
must not be ignored, and yet we are all familiar with 
the fact that they are continually and notoriously dis¬ 
regarded. Could we, in the present age, carry out this 
theory, I question the ability of any reformer or 
economist to invent, or conceive, of any law or system 
of laws under which a government could be organized 
that would even equal this government. 

The question that now arises in the mind of the 
reader is, “ How can we carry this theory into prac¬ 
tice?” 

Before undertaking to answer, each of the axioms 
must be explained in detail; if not, some of my readers 
will claim that the axioms, which constitute the theory, 
contain error, and that therefore all the reasoning 
founded upon them is necessarily fallacious. 

The first axiom— All men have an equal right to 
life^ liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I never knew 
to be denied, and shall therefore waste no time on any 
reader who questions its truth. 

The second— All men should be equal before the law, 
is self-evident, even though all men are not equal 
before the law under our present government. 

The third— The sovereignty of this governmeyit should 
be vested in the whole people, to whom it of natural right 
belongs, will be questioned by some, and in refutation it 
will be afiirmed that the sovereignty should be vested 
in the ^najority. It is true that under our present gov¬ 
ernment the sovereignty is vested in a particular ma¬ 
jority. This is not conducive to the greatest justice to 


LEX FORI. 


9 


all our people, on account of the fact that a particular 
majority on any single question may band together and 
become the majority on all other questions. If men 
would honestly and conscientiously express their opin¬ 
ions on all public matters, the majority deciding the 
question of taxation would be composed of different 
men from the majorit}^ deciding the question of pro¬ 
hibition ; but as matters are now adjusted, the majority 
who obtain possession of public office are the ma¬ 
jority Avho dispose of the questions of taxation, judic- 
1 iary, finance, religion and eveiything else, irrespective 
of the vieAvs of other citizens. 

The sovereignty should be so managed that the peo¬ 
ple could easily arrange themselves in different ma¬ 
jorities, whenever they felt so inclined ; but this arrange¬ 
ment can never be effected under our present system of 
voting. Our present method of voting should permit 
our electors to divide up as much as they please on 
our various public issues. If this were the case the ma¬ 
jority on one question, probably, Avould not be the same 
persons composing the majority on another question. 
It would then be veiy difficult for a legally qualified 
voter to find himself in the minority on every public 
question ;on the contrary, he would find the majority on 
some occasions voting with him, and in this manner 
he would be enabled to exercise his sovereignty, which, 

' as defined by Smith, is “ The right to define the right 
! and enforce the decision.” 

Fourth — The government^ ae an agent of the whole 
gjeople, should exercise its powers only with the consent of 
the governed. This evidently is true, and yet our pub¬ 
lic officials under this government do liot concern them¬ 
selves much about the consent of the governed ; they 



10 


LEX FORI. 


very frequently act without any reference whatever to 
public opinion. 

The cause of the general indifference of our public 
officials is traceable to defects in our electoral laws,which 
are fully explained under the head of “Perpetual Not¬ 
ing.” The inability of our people to clearly and effect¬ 
ively exercise their authority, under our present ballot 
system, ] 3 artly ex^^lains why public officials care so lit¬ 
tle about the will of the people. If each constituency 
could readily call its public servants to an account, our 
public servants would invariably consult the people 
when about to introduce a new law or policy, or repeal 
or modify an old one. 

Pifth— [a production we should strive to e'ffect as 
much economy of time and lahor as possible. I his is 
simply another way of expressing the well-recognized 
truism: “We gratify our desires with the least exer¬ 
tion.” In reaching any destination we should use the 
shortest route. This axiom requires no additional 
explanation. 

Sixth — Every person should have the right to pursue 
whatever vocation Jte pleases, jorovided that in so doing 
lie affects no person unjustly. This axiom guarantees to 
every man the right to determine for what trade, pro¬ 
fession or business he is best (pualified, witliout any re¬ 
straint on the part of any organization, provided he 
keeps within the laAvs established for the general pro¬ 
tection. That some arbitrary laAvs or customs make it 
difficult under our present gOA^ernment for men to 
engage in certain legal trades or professions is unques¬ 
tionable, but such laAvs and customs are contrary to the 
spirit of republican institutions and should not be tol¬ 
erated. The right enjoyed under this axiom inA^ests 


LEX FORI. 


11 


the individual with the duty to discover what his par¬ 
ticular qualifications are, and to apply them accord- 
If selects a business for which he is unfit, he 
will soon find out his mistake by the indifference or 
disapproval of the public. A community manifest their 
appreciation of an individual’s service by increasing or 
decreasing their demand for his services through the 
distribution of their patronage. 

Seventh— Public officials should he public servants. 
Nobody will hesitate about admitting that public offi¬ 
cials ought to be public servants, and yet under our 
present social structure public officials are frequently 
public despots. To our elective system can be attrib¬ 
uted the insolence and indifference of the great body of 
our public officials, and under the head of “ Perpetual 
Voting ” the truth of this will also be shown. 

Eighth— ■ The incoine a citizen receives should be in 
direct proportion to the service he renders the co'inmunity. 
This axiom may require somewhat more explanation 
than many of the others; but it is true, never¬ 
theless. With the exception of those persons whose 
wages are fixed by law, the amount of money a man is 
legally earning or receiving (when the field is fair and 
open and no monopoly inserts its tentacles) measures 
the estimate placed on that man’s services by the pub¬ 
lic' at large. 

To illustrate : If by selling shoes I can acquire ten 
thousand dollars a year and another man engaged in 
the same business realizes only one thousand dollars, 
(time, capital, locality and all other things being equal), 
I render ten times as much valuable judged by 

the consumers themselves^ as my competitor. 

Examine the case of a man selling milk to the public 





12 


LEX FOEI. 


and that of a man selling beer. The milk seller, in the 
estimation of either the reader or writer, may render 
much better service, do the lesser injury, etc., and con¬ 
sequently be entitled to the larger remuneration; but 
owing to the fact that you and I are enormously out¬ 
numbered by the beer drinkers, the latter can afford to 
pay the beer seller ten thousand dollars per year, and 
each beer-drinker pay his part with more ease than we 
milk-drinkers can pay our milk seller one thousand 
dollars per year. 

On this account, when we consider the views of the 
whole community, the beer-seller, measured by the rev¬ 
enue he receives, would be missed more by the com¬ 
munity than the milk-dealer. This reasoning applies 
with equal force to everybody, no matter what his trade, 
profession or vocation. 

The case of the successful prize-fighter running a 
saloon on the Bowery is another example. His revenue 
is probaby two thousand dollars per year, while an aver¬ 
age tailor receives in wages less than three hundred dol¬ 
lars per year. Measured by the public’s estimation, 
the prize-fighter, by the single act of disfiguring a fel¬ 
low-being in the prize ring, is enabled to gratify the 
curiosity of so many thoughtless people that thousands 
and thousands of them enter his saloon each year and, 
by spending five cents or more for beer, are permitted 
to obtain a glimpse of a rare man, who has deliberately 
risked his life or has professionally disfigured another 
human l)eing and yet has not directly increased the com¬ 
fort, one particle, of a single individual on earth ; while 
the tailor receives only three hundred dollars or less 
per year, notwithstanding that he has made many 
suits of comfortable clothing for his fellow beings. 


LEX FORI. 


13 


and, so far as utility to linmanity is concerned, greatly 
surpasses the prize-fighter. 

However unjust this axiom may seem, it is the theory 
of this government and will be a principle in the most 
improved republican form of government of which hu¬ 
manity can now conceive. 

Ninth — Every 2 ^^rson engaged in any legal productive 
industry or vocation is supposed to render the community 
a service. The use of the word productive implies in¬ 
creasing our store of useful things or administering to 
our tastes or pleasures. 

When a great cantatrice renders an audience a ser¬ 
vice by singing a few verses and receives as payment 
probably a thousand dollars or more per night, the 
thousand dollars is the audience’s combined estimate of 
the service she renders. There is no question that the 
more things of utility to humanity are produced b}^ an 
individual, the better it is for the people, provided there 
is no tax dodging on the part of some persons of great 
wealth, who are permited to monopolize more than 
their share of such articles of utility to the injury of 
others. 

Tenth — Every man should pay tax or public rent to 
the community for the wealth he is using in proportioii 
to the value of the wealth. That is, if his possession of 
value is large, his taxes (or public rent) ought to be 
large, and if his possession of value is small, his taxes 
(or public rent) ought to be small. 

Eleventh — The man who economizes sho^dd be per¬ 
mitted to enjoy the fruits of his economy. This axiom 
expresses, only differently, what is contained in the 
common proverb, “ He who eats his cake cannot also 
have it.” If a man saves his cake, another ought not 






14 


LEX FORI. 


to eat it without the owner’s consent. The man who is 
careful and avoids extravagance, should be protected 
in his right to enjoy that which he has accumulated as 
the result of his care and economy. 

Twelfth— Those persons best (pualijied for doing 
specific work ctre the perso7is who shoidd do such work. 
This axiom will merge with the eighth, but is neverthe¬ 
less, by itself, a separate axiom. To carry it into prac¬ 
tice we must have the man who can make the best 
boots, make boots ; the man who can paint the best 
pictures, paint pictures ; the man who can make the 
best laws, make laws, etc. This axiom is a postulate. 

Thirteenth —Every competent person should he re¬ 
quired to p>i'oduce at least as much as he consumes. In 
other words, and as generally expressed, “No able- 
bodied person should be a burden on society.” Under 
a government conducted strictly in accordance with the 
theory of this government, no incentive to indolence or 
vagabondage would exist, because progress could al- 
Avays be made by the industrious and talented. Noth¬ 
ing so disheartens mankind as to be unable to hope for 
improvement in the future. This axiom applies Avith 
especial force to the parasite and non-producer 
of modern society. To liaA^e a little poA^erty with 
us is a good thing, for the purpose of enlivening 
the efforts of those Avho are naturally disposed to 
be indolent and Avithout ambition. The sting of pov¬ 
erty is good for some human beings. All poverty 
in our country Avill never be eliminated, because Avealth 
and poverty are relative conditions. A ham sandwich 
might be poverty to one of the coal syndicate and yet 
be riches to a BoAvery tramp. Poverty ought to be so 
mitigated by righteous laAvs that even if a man is lazy 


LEX FOEI. 


15 


for a month or two he shall not be compelled to pay 
the penalty of death from starvation on account of his 
I temporary laziness. It is penalty enough that he should 
be compelled to satisfy himself with cheap or coarse 
food, instead of delicacies, which ought to be the 
reward of the enterprising and of those rendering 
society a great service, as measured by the revenue 
I they receive. 

I Fourteenth— All men are innocent until j^^ovedguilty 
I hy the law of the land. This axiom reposes the power 
i of judging the guilty or innocent in a proper tribunal, 

' and prohibits every person from assuming the func- 
! tions of a judge or jury. 

! Fifteenth— The welfare of an individual should he 

I subordinate to that of the commiinity. By this axiom is 

meant that the welfare of the community is of more 
importance than that of the individual, and that when 
! the welfare of the community conflicts with that of the 
f individual the welfare of the latter must give way, to 
[i the extent consistent with the inalienable rights of the 
individual, which are, compensation for property taken 
under the law of Eminent Domain, trial by the law of 
the land, etc. 

Sixteenth— The higher ownership is vested hy natural 
right in the whole people. This is demonstrated when 
boards of apj)raisement, representing the people, fix 
the price of a citizen’s property, when required for 
public use. The individual or owner can fix the price 
only when dealing with private individuals; he cannot 
fix it when dealing with the community. The com¬ 
munity fixes the price, when condemning private pro¬ 
perty, no matter how much “ red tape” is employed in 
so doing. Whoever has the right to-fix the price of an 




16 


LEX FORI. 


article and the right to use it, oions it. The law of 
Eminent Domain, as far as it goes, enforces the higher 
ownership of the people. 

Seventeenth — That act should he done xohich results 
in the greatest good to the greatest nuinher^ without invad¬ 
ing individual natural rights. No majority can rightly 
abridge the individual natural rights of the minority. 
It is very difficult to enact a law that does not work 
some hardship) to somebody. Legislators should al¬ 
ways strive to do the greatest good to the greatest 
number. 

Eighteenth — The views of the majority should 
alwaxjsprevail^ when individual natural rights are not 
invaded. If this axiom is ignored in legislating, trouble 
will be the consequence. The majority ultimately 
enforce their wishes. They may be fooled for a long 
time, but their will is finally carried into effect, even 
though blood must be shed to do it. Minorities rule 
for intervals only. The people ultimately triumph ; 
yet before a truly democratic republican government 
can be established, the majority must be enabled to 
decide and maintain the right of any and every citizen, to 
divide and split up any public issue or issues, however 
minute, independent of any party lines. 

Nineteenth — No man should he deprived of life or 
property xvithout due process of law. Under this axiom 
every citizen is guaranteed a fair trial, and no property 
can be taken from him without giving adequate com¬ 
pensation in exchange. 

As this government lives or is reconstructed by 
statute law or evolution, new axioms will develop. It 
may be that in the remote future these axioms will be 
reduced to a few general rules which will cover or in- 


LEX FORI. 


17' 


elude every principle involved in the theory of this 
government. 

The question then is, if the theory is right and just, 
‘‘ How can the theory of this government he carried into 
practice f ” 

The answer is, by preventing vote selling^ tax dodging 
and money cornering. 

Now naturally follows another question, viz.: ^^llow 
can vote selling^ tax dodging and, money cornering he 
prevented f ” 

The reply is; that the adoption of David Keeves 
Smith’s system of Perpetual Voting, his system of 
taxation called the Death Rate Tax, and his system 
of Just Money will make vote selling, tax dodging and 
money cornering impossible. 

Let us first consider Perpetual Voting. 

PERPETUAL VOTING. 

Before attempting to demonstrate the importance of 
Perpetual Voting, what kind of a system of voting it is 
and that it alone would effect a prodigious step in the 
progress of this government, we will undertake to show 
that every system of voting whose chief purpose is 
secrecy is theoretically wrong, and in the course of 
I time, as a result of a people’s experience, it will be dis¬ 
covered that under the pall of secrecy the greatest 
frauds and outrages are 2 :)erpetrated at the ballot box,, 
and ever will be. We all realize that good acts seek 
the light, while bad acts seek darkness. When a man 
is guilty of some act for which his conscience re¬ 
proaches him, he does not strive to have the act pub- 
j lished ; but when he has done a good or creditable act 



18 


LEX EOEI. 


lie frequently seeks tlie utmost notoriety, and rarely 
fears it. 

Tlie community are naturally disposed to approve 
good acts and condemn bad ones, because of tlie fact 
that righteous laws are those which will best promote 
the welfare of mankind, and that the misery wdiich is 
the result of bad laws teaches men, by experience, to 
distinguish between right and wrong. 

Because of secrecy at the ballot box, credit cannot 
always be given where it is merited or censure always 
administered where deserved. Under the cover of 
secrecy the good man can hide himself, and the bad 
man invariably will. Turn the light of publicity on all 
our acts and we will immediately strive to avoid 
public censure by committing fewer bad acts. 
The secrecy of the ballot box enables the 
briber and bribed each to perform his part of the un¬ 
lawful contract; the briber to l)uy the unfortunate 
^elector, and the bribed to sell his birthright, without 
the public learning who either the buyer or seller is. 
A greater blow could not be given to the business of 
vote buying or selling than that of making all voting 
'Open to the public. 

While voting is secret some men will not only sell 
their votes, but will have the effrontery to deplore and 
'Condemn vote selling when expressing their views 
publicly. It is by the means of secrecy at the ballot 
l)ox that some of our electors are enabled to talk for 
right and justice three hundred and sixty-four days in 
the year and on the three hundred and sixtj^-fifth, viz., 
election day, vote against right and justice. Were it not 
for secrecy in voting, such electors would vote as they 
Talked, or else cease to advocate the cause of right and 


LEX FORI. 


19 


justice. Make voting public, let tlie sunlight of honesty 
fall on the act, and men will no longer inconsistent!}’ vote 
one way and talk another; if they do, and the voting is 
public, their neighbors will take them to task for their 
mendacity and inconsistency. 

Those who have had experience in secret lodges or 
organizations must have observed, when candidates 
for admission are voted on secretly, how frequently evil 
minded members of the lodge Avill avail themselves of 
the secret vote to prevent the admission of an appli¬ 
cant against whom but little can be said to justify his 
non-admission. The evil minded member, desirous of 
gratifying his personal spite, invariably insists upon 
the secret ballot, while the fair minded man does not 
care for secrecy when he thinks a bad man ought not 
to be admitted into the organization. 

Secret organizations would not exist in this country 
if we enjoyed genuine freedom at the ballot box, and 
real freedom of sj^eech. Men do in secret organiza¬ 
tions Avhat they fear to do outside of such bodies. The 
very existence of a secret organization proves some 
restraint of freedom. 

Many will claim that if it Avere not for secrecy the 
employer Avould bulldoze and intimidate his employee. 
On the contrary, it is by the means of secrecy that the 
boss or employer accomplishes the most of his intimi¬ 
dation. It is the custom in this country at the present 
time for many corporations to compel their employes 
to vote a certain ticket; yet because of the secret bal¬ 
lot but feAV are aAvare of it, save the corporation and 
the employees. If every elector in the United States 
Avere forced to vote openly, so that any citizen could 
learn Iioav eA’erybody else is voting, it Avould soon be 



20 


LEX FOKI. 


known by the public what employer or corporation 
required their help to vote a certain ticket. The pub¬ 
lic would then prevent the intimidation by withholding 
patronage or exposing the employer or corporation to 
public scorn. Even if the public does not come to the 
assistance of the employees, the workman will learn 
that a few proprietors are dominating hundreds of their 
employees. 

When the intimidation of help by employers is dis¬ 
closed, our citizens will realize that a bulldozed work¬ 
man is not enjoying his rights as a citizen, and that 
his liberty of thought or freedom of speech is re¬ 
strained. Under such conditions, if a handful of bosses 
can successfully and unjustly impose on their 
thousands of employees, then most assuredly is our 
liberty only a farce. One man cannot ordinarily con¬ 
trol and intimidate a hundred. As soon as the pall of 
secrecy is thrust aside, the hundred perceive the in¬ 
timidation, realize their strength of numbers, see their 
employer’s paucity, and then organize to prevent the 
bulldozing. 

The elevated railroads in this city may be taken as 
an illustration of this idea. Under cover of the secret 
ballot box (secret to the public but not to the profes¬ 
sional politicians) the officers of the Manhattan Ele¬ 
vated Railway may be compelling every workman on 
the roads to vote a certain ticket. With a system of 
public voting we could soon ascertain whether the 
officers were or not, and if they were it would soon be 
known to the public that, in order to obtain employ¬ 
ment on the elevated roads, a man must vote in accord¬ 
ance with the officers’ instructions. As soon as pub¬ 
lic attention became riveted on the railway officials’ 



LEX FORI. 


21 


intimidation of tlieir employees, it would require but 
little time for the officers to learn that if they did not 
cease to bulldoze their help the public would resent 
such outrageous intimidation by opposing at elections 
the very men for whom the Manhattan Railway officers 
compelled their emjDloyees to vote. 

Under the cover of secrecy the boss takes his help 
one by one and directs their voting, while at the same 
time many of the employees who vote as the boss 
directs do not realize that all the help are voting the 
same ticket at the instigation of their boss. 

If all voting was openly and publicly recorded, and 
we could determine by looking at the record how 
everybody voted, it would be readity discovered that a 
comj^aratively few persons of great wealth were exer¬ 
cising a disproportionate influence over a large number 
of their fellow citizens. 

Many times in the history of the world have a people 
discovered that a handful of wealthy personages were 
dominating them, and in a fit of temporary rage have 
thrown off the iron heel of monarchy, plutocracy or 
aristocracy; but because of their lack of intelligence or 
the inability to establish a fair system of managing 
the wealth of a nation, the heel of despotism has been 
again placed on such peoples’ necks, only in a different 
form. 

Intelligence will always prevail in the end. A good 
illustration of the efficacy of open voting, compared 
with secret balloting, was exemplified in the experience 
of the “Know Nothing” movement in this country. 

The Know Nothing j^arty made uninterupted pro¬ 
gress in those States in which voting was secret, but 
when Virginia voted, a State whose electors voted by 


22 


LEX FORI. 


proclaiming tlieir candidates openly, the party met Avitli 
its first repulse, because it had little or no argument 
to give the public justifying a vote for the Know 
Nothing ticket. In Greece the beginning of the de¬ 
cline of the republic was coeval with the adoption of 
secret voting. Cicero, Rome’s greatest statesman, con¬ 
demned the secret vote on account of the corruption it 
covered. 

At one time in the history of this republic our elec¬ 
tors did not hesitate to express their opinions on any 
public question, because they then enjoyed freedom of 
speech in practice as well as in theory and had no fear 
of an employer, but now our people are more guarded 
in their statements concerning public matters, and this 
is especially true of large cities. In our great cities 
the average American fears to claim his soul as his own* 

We have very little honest expression of opinion 
among our people in this age, because the environ¬ 
ments and self interests of the majority of our citizens 
are such that they are helplessly dependent on their 
employers and fear the loss of employment. The 
liability of citizens to discharge by their employers 
makes the former very careful in uttering an 
opinion which might reach their employers’ ears 
and thereby aftect their interests in some manner. If 
such is the condition in which we find ourselves after 
the noble sacrifices made by the colonial heroes, why 
not let us know and realize it as soon as possible, by 
tearing oft* the mask of secrecy and disclosing the fact 
that we are subservient slaves to plutocracy instead of 
freemen. 

Under our secret system of voting much instruction 
is wasted and great quantities of educational ammuni- 


LEX FOEI. 


23 


tioii thrown around indiscriminately, where it can do^ 
but little good. Had we a system of voting by which 
we could determine exactly by whom a certain vote was- 
made, we could direct our arguments and literature at 
those w^ho require the most education and not squan¬ 
der them on those who already vote intelligently. 

Secrecj^ is not only bad at the ballot-box, but it is 
injurious to the family. If every family were to an¬ 
nounce to the public its miseries, economies and pri¬ 
vations, the community would soon discover that a 
large percentage of our peox)le are in distress, and that 
something radical must shortly be done to mitigate 
their sufferings; yet when every family conceals its 
woes as much as loossible, every other family concludes 
that matters are in a much better condition than they 
actually are, and as a result of the apparent content¬ 
ment, submission to the suffering continues indefi¬ 
nitely. 

“ If every pain and care we felt, 

Could burn upon our brow; 

How many hearts would move to heal, 

That try to crush us now.” 

Tear off the mask of secrecy and the golden light of 
truth will cause the evaporation of many a cesspool of 
squalor and corruption that now is a public stench. 

When a man has a grievance against another and 
remains silent about it, the probability of having it 
redressed is not so great as when he walks up to the 
aggressor, in an open, manly way, and explains his 
grievance. If he continues without a complaint his 
hardship continues. If the party against whom the 
grievance is held is not disposed to be fair and just^ 
the. sooner the sufferer explains his grievance the 


24 


LEX FORI. 


sooner the matter is forced to an issue, and if it must 
ultimately be settled by force, the sooner the fight 
begins the better it is for all engaged. So it is with 
the people. To-day they have a grievance against 
monopoly, corruption, wealth, centralization, etc., but 
they cannot announce their grievance candidly and 
forcibly by the means of our present system of secret 
voting. They go on voting secretly, year in and year 
out, dissatisfied with the governing class, but unable to 
elect any candidate except those nominated by the 
professional politician. 

If our electors must precipitate apolitical revolution 
before justice reigns, why not join issue with our op¬ 
pressors as soon as possible and not waste time skulk¬ 
ing about a secret ballot box. 

Our present electoral laws invest the inspectors of 
elections with too much power. An inspector ought 
to be the simplest and least important of public ser¬ 
vants, as his work is only clerical. The principle un¬ 
derlying our present election law (although this may 
be awkwardly expressed), is that secrecy is better secured 
under a law that makes provision for but ten inspect¬ 
ors, than under a law that makes provision for twenty, 
and almost absolutely secured under a law making pro¬ 
vision for but one or two inspectors, instead of four. 

While this kind of reasoning is logical, is it not 
evident that as the number of inspectors is de¬ 
creased and absolute secrecy is more closely ap¬ 
proached, the power and importance of the inspectors 
increase as their number decreases, until they are re¬ 
duced to the one inspector, who can learn what nobody 
else in the community can learn, namely, how 
nearly everybody in the community has voted 


LEX FORI. 


25 


and at the same time (in order to secure 
this greatest secrecy of which we can conceive) 
we place ourselves at the mercy of one inspector, who 
can change the result to suit himself or his bosses by 
changing ballot boxes or employing some other trick 
and thereby thwart the intention of a whole com¬ 
munity. 

When another officer is employed to watch or inspect 
the ballots, the secrecy becomes less, and so continues 
as the number of watchers is increased. It is fre¬ 
quently the case, under our present system of voting, 
that the majority of electors in an election precinct 
(in order to expose a trick of election inspectors) are 
required to testify under oath as to their voting. This 
testifying under oath destroys all secrecy and evinces 
beyond cavil that absolute secrecy at the ballot box is 
wholly impracticable. 

The latest effort in the line of secret balloting is the 
introduction of a secret voting machine, which counts, 
adds, etc., but is perfectly useless when an attempt to 
prevent repeating is required. It counts repeated 
votes as well as those of honest electors. How much 
better it would be to require each elector to write his 
name on a public book, and then have properly quali¬ 
fied inspectors count the names only that were entitled 
to a vote, and at the same time invest in any member 
of a particular election district the right to examine 
and inspect the pulilic book at any time. 

It may be contended that open voting will expose 
electors to the retaliation of their employers when the 
employer is dissatisfied with the vote. The answer to 
this is, that Avhen every elector is exposed, nobody 
will be punished, as it is too great a task to punish a 


26 


LEX rOKL 


whole community. The public, when permitted to freely 
express their views, can be trusted to ultimately do ) 
what is right. 

To illustrate : The audience in a theatre invariably 
applaud the good acts of the hero, and hiss the vicious j 
acts of the villain. I cite this as proof that people are , 
naturally disposed to conform to that which is right ? 
and just, and if permitted to discuss and understand 1 
all public matters, we need have no fear that they will 8 
fail to exercise right reason in manifesting their I 
approval or disapproval in public affairs, provided they • 
have the proper system of voting. 

It is our circumstances that are responsible for our 
numerous misdeeds and not “pure cussedness.” If y 
the principle of secrecy underlying our electoral laws f 
is right, why are we not consistent by adhering to the | 
principle all through our social structure ? If the I 
sovereigns, as we term our electors, must vote secretly, j| 
why should not our public servants also enjoy the pro- | 
tection of secrecy? If the sovereign elector is per- ’ 
mitted to shirk the resjDonsibility of his vote, by the 
means of a secret ballot, why should we not permit 
our Assemblymen, our Congressmen, our Senators to : 
vote under cover of secrecy, and also shirk their re¬ 
sponsibility ? 

Having shown in some measure that secret voting of 
any kind (no matter how effectually the voter can con¬ 
ceal his views) is wrong, the description of Perpetual 
Voting is now in order. ^ 

In each election precinct in a properly located and 
equipped office, must be kept a large book called the 
Vote Itecovd. Each properly qualified elector is to 
have a page in this Vote Record, assigned to him for 



LEX FOm. 


27 


liis especial voting. The face of each page is to pre¬ 
sent an appearance something similar to the follow- 
ing: 

JOHN DOE. 


PRESIDENT 

SENATOR 

repr’tative 

GOVERNOR 

assem’man 

John Brown 



Henry Moor 


Peter Jonci 



John Grey 



The above is the page assigned to John Doe. On it 
must be columns enough to represent all the public 
offices for which John Doe has the right to vote. At 
the head of each column is the name of the office. 
The book must be wide enough for the purpose and 
about the length of an ordinary ledger. The Vote 
Record must be in charge of a single clerk, whose duty 
it shall be to take charge of the office, keep the book in 
proper condition during the year, and report the vote, 
when required, to a central office, from which shall 
be issued, at least every month, bulletins containing 
tabulated accovints of the vote in the various election 
districts. 

John Doe shall have the right to walk into the Vote 
Record Office, any day except Sunday, between the 
hours of nine o’clock in the morning and four o’clock 
in the afternoon, and write in the Vote Record on his 
particular page and in the proper column, the name of 
any man he chooses, and that name shall be his choice 
for the office printed at the top of the column. The 
last name written by John Doe in a column supersedes 
the preceding name and is his choice for said office, 
until he writes another name under the last. 

Supposing that John Doe wishes to vote for Presi- 












28 


LEX FORI. 


dent and his choice is John Brown, he will write the 
name of John Brown in the Presidential column and 
John Brown thereby becomes his choice for President. 
If Doe concludes that Brown does not suit him and 
that Peter Jones is a better man for the office, he will 
write the name of Peter Jones under that of John 
Brown and Peter Jones thereby becomes his choice for 
President. When Peter Jones has a majority or plu¬ 
rality (whichever the people shall decide) of the elec¬ 
tors supporting him, he takes possession of the Presi¬ 
dency and John Brown vacates the office. 

To prevent Doe from changing his vote too fre- 
ipiently, it shall be the law that when an elector fills 
up his column with names, he cannot vote any more 
for that office until a new page is assigned him at the 
beginning of the year, when a new page is assigned to 
every properly qualified elector. Doe is to have the 
right to change his choice for any office on any day in 
the year, Sundays excepted, by writing in the last name 
in the proper column. 

The \ ote Record clerk shall report to a central office 
every week or month (whichever the people decide 
necessary) the result of the vote, and when a candidate 
obtains a majority or plurality, he is to take possession 
of the office and the preceding incumbent vacates it. 

Every elector must have the right to examine the 
^ ote Record at any time, count the votes, inspect the 
signatures of the electors, and compare his account of 
the vote with the returns as made by the Vote Record 
clerk. 

This system of Perpetual Voting is the only system 
under which money will exercise no powerful influ¬ 
ence. Under it the vocation of the vote buyer will be 


LEX FOEI. 


29 


destroyed. To illustrate : Suppose that Joliu Doe is 
a vote-seller and a Henry Moor heeler desires to buy 
his vote for Henry Moor who is a candidate for gov¬ 
ernor. The Moor heeler is paying five dollars for 
a vote. The heeler agrees to pay Doe five dollars, 
provided he writes the name of Henry Moor in the 
governmental column of the Vote Kecord. Doe writes 
the name of Moor in the proper column and receives 
the five dollars from the Henry Moor heeler. With¬ 
in a week John Doe has spent his money and wants 
more. An idea enters his mind, and he immediately 
changes his choice by wu’iting under the name of Henry 
Moor that of John Grey or some other person, in order 
to induce the Moor healer to buy his vote over again. 
To avoid this natural tendency of the vote seller, the 
Moor heeler, in order to keep the vote seller in 
line, would be forced to constantly supply the vote 
seller with money. As there is not enough money 
in office holding to keep the vote-sellers constantly 
supplied with money, vote buyers and Henry Moor 
heelers, would be forced to abandon their business of 
vote buying. • 

Under Perpetual Voting every man who professes to 
be in favor of principle would be forced to vote accord¬ 
ingly ; because his neighbors and acquaintances would 
not tolerate his talking for principle and then record¬ 
ing himself on the Vote Kecord as in favor of the 
classes. Under Perpetual Voting we could discover 
who were the men avIio voted for currency contraction, 
and if they were not bankers or large income collectors, 
undertake to show them the injury they did themselves 
by their vote. 

Another beneficial feature of this system of open 


30 


LEX FORI. 


Toting would be that of making our public officials 
truly representative and compelling tliem to do the 
bidding of their constituencies. 

The ability of an elector, under Perpetual Voting, to 
change his choice for any office would enable him to 
withdraw his support from any public official at any 
time, and thereby exercise permanent control over his 
])ublic servants. Under our present system we elect a 
man to office for a definite term, one, two, three, four 
or more years. During his term it is almost impossi¬ 
ble to remove him, no matter how much his constituents 
may desire his removal. 

A whole constituency may be convinced that one of 
tlieir public officials is a tool of monopoly, but on ac¬ 
count of their inability to furnish positive j)roof of the 
official’s pertid}", the constituency must await the ex- 
])iration of his term before the voters of the constitu¬ 
ency can have an opportunity, at the ballot-box, to re¬ 
buke him by defeat. 

Under Perpetual Voting the people could remove a 
man almost instantly. The exercise of this removal 
power by the people Avould compel a public official to 
respect the vieAVS of his constituency or be quickly 
retired from office. Good men would be kept in office 
under this system, and bad men quickly removed. 

Every master has the right to discharge his servant 
when the latter acts improperly or contrary to the 
interests of the master. Why should not our electors 
in this country, who are the masters in theory, exercise 
the same right over their public servants ? 

Perpetual Voting provides for all that is desirable 
or achievable in the way of election or voting reforms. 
It will provide for all that is desired by the advocates 


LEX FOlil. 


31 


of the Swiss forms of initiative and referendum and 
also for effective minority representation. 

Perpetual Voting will secure as representatives and 
legislators men who have studied the laws of all nations 
—men who are familiar with the laws of the past, their 
beneficial features and their special defects. Such men 
will naturally be better qualified for law-making be¬ 
cause of their innate taste for history, statistics, public 
finances, etc., than a much more numerous class who 
have an excessive fondness for ball playing, horse-racing, 
circus attending, theatre-going, etc., which precludes 
their studying social economics. Many persons would 
sooner work hard one week than think hard one hour. 
Tt)o many prefer to have some trustworthy repre¬ 
sentative dig and delve in the musty, dismal laws of 
the past and afterward give the result to the 
ple in the shajDe of condensed laws. Such persons 
will never investigate a law, or reason out its effects; 
they simply measure all laws by the number of com¬ 
forts they enjoy under them. A law under which 
they have many comforts they deem a good law, and 
a law under which they have few comforts they con¬ 
sider a bad law. 

AVhen I want a suit of clothing, I cannot forsake my 
business of carpentry or of shoe making, etc., in order 
to acquire sufficient knowledge to enable me to select 
a first-class piece of woolen cloth, that will neither 
fade nor shrink, out of wliich to make my suit. I can¬ 
not afford to waste my time or destroy my cloth in ex¬ 
perimenting with the different methods of cutting a 
suit of clothes. In other words, I cannot become a 
tailor; I am already something else, which has cost 
me a great deal of time anl labor. What must I do? 


32 


LEX FORI. 


I select a tailor in whom 1 have confidence and 
tell him the kind of a suit I want. Because of his Let¬ 
ter qualifications for the tailor business, 1 obtain the 
style and quality of a suit desired, at less cost and 
more advantage than I could, as a rule, make it myself. 
What I do in the case of procuring a suit of clothing 
the people will generally do in making their laws. The 
people and I are governed by the same principle. 

There is another reason why Perpetual Voting 
(which enables those best qualified for doing certain 
work to do such work) is better than any other known 
system of voting. 

Most people are too susceptible to personal influ¬ 
ence. If they were to vote directly for every law and 
office it would be discovered that the most popular 
man would be too often the successful candidate, and 
not the most talented or best qualified man. 

Suppose that a switchman were to be elected by 
popular vote for a position at a neighboring crossing 
and that there were two candidates, one a jovial, good- 
natured fellow, ever ready to tell a comical story, and 
so free hearted that he would at any time part with 
his shirt in order to render a fellow being a service, 
but who could never charge his mind with anything 
serious, the other candidate, a crank who could not 
speak civilly to anyone, yet was never known to be 
irregular in his habits, was always attentive to his 
business, never drank intoxicants, and was eminently 
fitted for properly signaling trains. Which of these 
two candidates does the reader think Avould be elected 
to the position as switchman ? The jovial fellow would 
win on a popular vote with a majority of ten to one. 

Because of this tendency of humanity in general, to 


LEX FORI. 


33 


act in accordance with their tastes and passions, laws 
should not as a rule be made by the people directly 
although the law-makers should be voted for d rectly. 
Laws should usually be made by the people, through 
their representatives, in order to enable them to exer¬ 
cise their best and coolest judgment. But ample pro¬ 
vision should be made for direct legislation and for 
securing the initiative to every voter, otherwise the 
provision for the complete sovereignty of the people 
would be insufficient. Perpetual Voting is the only 
system that combines the 2 )eople’s ability to exer¬ 
cise a substantial judgment on all public laws (with¬ 
out going into detail) with the power to delegate their 
jjrivileges to some trustworthy legislator, who will in¬ 
vestigate all the technicalities of law, past and present. 

Another commendable feature of Perj^etual Voting 
is that which enaldes the elector to change his vote 
given in sujjport of any law or person. Progress con¬ 
sists of changes, and the thing which does not change 
does not develop). Objects may ajj^^ear to us in a differ¬ 
ent light to-day from that in which they aj^j^eared yes¬ 
terday. We may learn something about a law or 2 )ub- 
lic official to-day of which we had no knowledge yester¬ 
day, and any electoral system which prevents us from 
acting in accordance with our latest knowledge does 
not permit us to use our best and latest judgment. 

If any citizen has believed that a certain public 
official is a model of all the virtues, but within five sec¬ 
onds after voting for him discovers that he is not a fit 
person to hold the position, it is not compatible with 
right and justice that the elector should be compelled 
to wait one whole year before he can manifest his dis¬ 
approval of such officer. 


34 


LEX FORI. 


The voting apparatus should change gradually in 
accordance with the gradual change in the views of the 
electors, and should reflect our views of to-day and not 
those of yesterday. 

A very im^Dortant objection to our present system of 
voting and of counting the vote in this State, and to 
wdiich Perpetual Voting is not exposed, is that the 
•counting of the vote under the existing electoral laws 
is manipulated in the interest of either one or the other 
of the old political parties. When a third or fourth 
party has cast its vote on election day, it matters not 
how many votes have been cast by the new parties the 
number credited to the new party by the inspectors at 
the ballot-box is always larger than the vote as an¬ 
nounced by the Board of State Canvassers at Albany. 
Where the figures are changed the writer does not pre- 
“tend to know, but any observer can easily discover 
that the vote of third parties grows smaller and smaller 
as the report of the vote is taken, first from the ballot 
inspectors, then to the various Boards of County Su¬ 
pervisors, and finally to the State Canvassing Board. 
The aggregate vote of a vigorous reform party, when 
added up from the inspector’s report on election night 
at the ballot-box, is invariably much larger than the 
number credited to the reform parties as announced 
by the State Canvassing Board. When the result is 
proclaimed by the Canvassing Board the ballots have 
been so manipulated that no evidence of the fraud can 
be adduced from their production. 

Under Perpetual Voting the true result could be 
learned by any voter at any time, because the Vote 
Kecord would furnish evidence in each elector’s hand¬ 
writing as to the actual vote, which could not be dis- 



LEX FOEI. 


35 


puted, and each elector could watch his own and his 
neighbors’ votes and see that the votes were properly 
counted. Under the present system of voting, when 
the result is made out in figures, the traces of fraud 
are invariably removed and little or no documentary 
or circumstantial evidence stares in the face the un¬ 
scrupulous ofiicials, who have tampered with the vote, 
as would be the case were the system of Perpetual 
Toting in vogue. 

The present electoral system resembles that of a 
corporation which burns up its minutes or written ac¬ 
count of its proceedings, and then invests the Presi¬ 
dent or Executive Board with the power to announce 
what were the acts and proceedings of the corporation. 
What is necessary to a fair vote and count is a journal 
[the Tote Eecord is such a journal] on Avhich is re¬ 
corded the people’s voting, just as the Congressional 
journal records the voting of the members of Congress. 

Perpetual Toting requires the preservation of the 
minutes of the people’s voting, and under it each con¬ 
stituency can judge for itself what is the actual result 
in its voting precinct, and by comparing the vote as 
recorded in the Tote Becord with the result as an¬ 
nounced by the central office or Canvassing Board, 
learn whether or not any fraud has been perpetrated 
by unscrupulous officials. 

Some readers will claim that any system of voting 
which permits an elector to change his vote so easily 
will keep the people in a perpetual “stew.” This is 
the identical argument used by the monarchists against 
this republic when it was first formed and it was pro- 
loosed to give the people a voice in its management. 

Monarchists always contended that our government 


36 


LEX FORI. 


would not last fifty years, that the people were not 
capable of governing themselves by a representative 
government, and that they would keep themselves in 
continual turmoil. 

If Perpetual Voting keeps the people in a perpetual 
“stew” then we must admit tliat the people are in¬ 
capable of governing themselves and that the monarch¬ 
ists were right in their argument against popular vot¬ 
ing. But Perpetual Voting will cause no turmoil; 
changes in public sentiment will be gradual under it, 
and after the novelty of Perpetual Voting has worn 
off, many people will seldom change their Vote after 
writing in the Vote Record the name of the man they 
wish to place in office. 

Many students of electoral laws believe that the 
Australian system is the proper system to employ, be¬ 
cause, as they think, votes cannot be bought and sold 
under it; that the buyer will be required to trust 
wholly to the seller’s word for the delivery of the vote. 
Such is not the case, as the buyer has only to request 
the seller to write a particular name on the ticket 
voted, and if that particular name is found on a ticket 
by the buyer or his agents when the votes are counted 
the price agreed upon is then paid to the seller. 

If the elector is prohibited from writing his choice 
for office on any ticket, his constitutional right to 
name any candidate independent of any party is 
abridged. If an elector is permitted to write even one 
name on his ticket, under the Australian system, the 
most genteel kind of traffic in votes can be carried on 
under this so-called secret method of voting without 
any pulling or hauling of the vote seller. 

In another manner can money be used under the 


LEX FOni. 


37 


Australian system. If A is a candidate for office 
against B and wishes to buy votes, he can do it indi¬ 
rectly by betting through his agents two dollars to ten 
cents with each purchasable voter that B will be 
elected. The purchasable voter, in order to win the 
two dollars, will almost invariably vote for A. 

The name “ Perpetual ” is applied to this system of 
voting because the man who writes the name of his 
candidate on the Vote Record and leaves that candi¬ 
date’s name as the last in the proper column, is con¬ 
tinually and perpetually voting for that candidate, un¬ 
til he records the name of a later candidate. In 
changing the names of candidates, as little time 
elapses, the voting is practically perpetual. 

The power to withdraw a public official from office 
at any time, guaranteed under Perpetual Yoting, is in 
conformity with the idea of the framers of Article Five 
of the Articles of Confederation, who inserted “ with a 
power reserved to each State to recall its delegates or 
any of them at any time within the year, and to send 
others in their stead for the remainder of the year.” 

This same feature is observed by the British Gov¬ 
ernment, under which a ministry opposed by parlia¬ 
ment has the right to appeal to the country at any time 
for support or approval. 

Whenever the members of a corporation, holding 
the majority of stock, wish to remove officers who 
are not working for the best inteiests of the corpora¬ 
tion, they are not compelled to wait for the expiration 
of the officers’ terms of office. They simply call a meet¬ 
ing of the stockholders at any time and the inefficient 
officers are immediately removed. 

Why should not the people of this country adopt 


38 


LEX FOFil. 


the same principle and remove their officers at any 
time the officers are found working against the interests 
of the people. 

The voting system which will enable our people to 
make public servants out of their public officials in 
fact, as well as in theory, is unquestionably Perpetual 
Yoting. This system of voting has been first treated 
in this work because the adoption of a proper method 
of expressing the people’s wishes, with regard to pub¬ 
lic matters, is the most important step we can take in 
remedying the prevalent social distress. 

It is useless to reason out a panacea and have no 
method of carrying it into practice. Of what avail is 
any law or policy which, if adopted, will produce in¬ 
effable good unless we have a proper method of using 
the law or policy ? 

On account of the foregoing reasons, the writer has 
deemed it most important to show that Perpetual 
Yoting will enable our people to agree upon the proper 
policy, when they have found such policy, and to 
carry it into practice with greater facility than by any 
other known system of voting. Under Perpetual 
Yoting we can compel those whom we have placed in 
power to do exactly what we desire them to do, and 
under it there will be no necessity for party organi¬ 
zation. 

After elucidating Perpetual Yoting we are now pre¬ 
pared to examine the question of taxation, which may 
be deemed next in order to that of voting and equally 
essential to the proper development of a truly republi¬ 
can form of government. 


LEX FOKI. 


39 ' 


TAXATION. 

Tax dodging is without doubt one of the most preva* 
lent and pernicious practices, on the part of the rich. 
To tax dodging and money cornering may be attribut¬ 
ed the principal wrongs with which the majority of our 
communities are afflicted. Find a ring of any kind of 
important rascals, men who prey upon the public and 
revel in illgotten wealth, and within that ring will be 
found the principal tax dodgers and money cornerers. 
If every possessor of great wealth was compelled to 
pay taxes on the full value of his possessions he could 
not so readily grow rich. When a man possesses a 
large quantity of value, for instance, one hundred 
thousand dollars’ worth or more, no matter Avhether 
the value is of land, houses, railroads, steamboats, 
wheat, meat or any other commodity, the tendency of 
these things to decay, their destruction by use, the 
necessity of employing more help in order to manage 
most profitably such value and to obtain therefrom 
the greatest possible income, all serve or tend to de¬ 
crease the rate with which the hundred thousand 
dollars of value accumulates; and if a two per cent, 
rate of taxation on full value were collected from the 
owner, he would soon learn that he could not own ad¬ 
vantageously much over one hundred thousand dollars, 
worth of value (probably much less) in any other 
form than in that of money, unless he was an unusually 
bright man and rendered the public a great service. 

When taxes are collected on full value and a citizen 
owns great quantities of wealth the possession of such 
riches Avill be creditable to him, because it will be in¬ 
disputable evidence that he is employing his value to 


40 


LEX FOKI. 


tlie greatest advantage and rendering the community 
the greatest service in the use of his wealth. It is by 
entering into collusion with or by exerting their in- 
Huence upon assessors that our rich citizens amass 
the greatest bulk of their wealth, or by preventing the 
enactment of any law which would effectively end tax 
dodging. 

As an illustration, of the success of the wealthy 
under our government in preventing the enactment of 
laws against tax dodging, consider the case of mort¬ 
gages. The mortgagee evades the payment of taxes 
on the mortgages he holds (notwithstanding that 
they are one of the most stable and secure investments 
of value known) solely on account of the ability of the 
rich to prevent the passage of any law which would 
effectively require the payment of taxes on all value. 

It may not be to the advantage of one State to tax 
mortgag63 while in other States they are not taxed; 
but if the general government were to frame a law 
which would result in the taxation of mortgages to 
their full value in every State, all of the States would 
be on equal footing so far as mortgage taxation is con¬ 
cerned. 

Probably no one will attempt to controvert the as¬ 
sertion that great injury is done a community by tax 
dodgers, but many of them will ask “ How can it be 
prevented? ” 

The enactment of three simple subordinate laws, in 
accordance with the plan of David Beeves Smith and 
in conformity with the lines of development on which 
this government is now moving, will make tax dodging 
impossible. These subordinate ^aws are called the 


LEX FORI. 


41 


Homestead Exemption Law, the Ownership Kecord 
Law and the Self Assessment Law. 

The enactment of the Homestead Exemption Law 
would guarantee to every family the possession of a 
residence worth two thousand dollars; the residence 
to be exempt from taxation and free from confiscation 
for debt. All value in the possession of the family 
over and above the two thousand dollar home to be. 
subject to taxation and confiscation for debt, as is the 
case now. By exempting the homestead in this man¬ 
ner the grocer, baker, or money lender would not be 
inclined to trust the head of the family for any amount 
of money or commodity with the expectation of taking 
possession of the homestead or a part of it some time, 
in satisfaction of the claim or debt. Credit would 
then be based on value over and above the two thou¬ 
sand dollar homestead. 

The object of the second of these laws, viz., the 
Ownership Kecord Law, is to compel every person to 
acknowledge publicly the ownership of his property. 
In the State of Vermont every x^erson owning any¬ 
thing of value is required to write its name, wdth the 
number of such things possessed, on a tax list es¬ 
pecially prepared for the purpose. Beside the name, 
in another column, the tax x^ayer sets the aggregate 
valuation of the things owned, as estimated by the 
owner himself. After each prox^erty holder has filled 
out his tax list the assessors take the list, examine it, 
and if they find any x^roperty on the list undervalued, 
the law requires the assessors to double the tax im¬ 
posed on each property holder. The fear of having 
their taxes doubled has a tendency to induce the tax- 


42 


LEX FORI. 


payers to correctly record and value their property on 
the list. 

The adoption of the Vermont law is not recom¬ 
mended by the writer, but the principle (viz., to use 
the owner’s judgment in determining the value of tax¬ 
able property) is. 

Under the Ownership Record Law nobody would be 
permitted to own any property not recorded (in a 
suitable office in each Assembly district) on a public 
list of easy access to the people. 

With such a law on our statute books, if a person 
had property of value and it was not recorded on the 
public list, the first person who discovered the unre¬ 
corded property would have the right to take posses¬ 
sion of it, and the legal title would vest in the dis¬ 
coverer on his recording it on the public list. 

When a law requiring a person to record his prop¬ 
erty in order to complete his title to it, under the 
penalty of forfeiting it to some other person who 
could prove it was not recorded, is enacted, every 
owner would record all property to which he attached 
much importance. 

By giving the unrecorded property to those wdio 
discovered it unrecorded, it would be almost impossible 
to find any property in the community of any value 
unrecorded exept that exempt under the Homestead 
Exemption Law. 

The ownership of property would then be dependent 
on the recording of the property in the public list, and 
to neglect recording it would be very expensive neg¬ 
ligence to the owner. In fact, the possessor of valuable 
property could not expose it to view if it were not re¬ 
corded, because the instant he did so somebody else 


LEX FORI. 


43 


would notice it and, after recording it, become the 
legal owner. 

After providing for the proper recording of property 
we must consider the plan to compel the owners of 
property to tell the truth about its value and not un¬ 
dervalue it for the purpose of tax-dodging. The law 
termed the Self-Assessment law will accomplish all we 
desire. 

This law requires every owner of property to write 
in an adjoining column his own valuation of his prop¬ 
erty as recorded in the Ownership Kecord. It also 
invests any other person in the community with the 
right to buy the property with cash, at the price placed 
on it in the Ownership Record (and on which the 
owner is paying taxes), and then the buyer’s valuation 
is placed on the property, subject to purchase at the 
Ownership Record price by any other person in the 
community. 

When such a law is placed on our statute books all 
the holders of great wealth, the land monopolizers, the 
coal barons, the railway kings, the oil-well proprietors 
and other rich men would be compelled to pay taxes 
on the full value of their property or part with it at a 
great sacrifice to persons who needed the valuable 
property more and could well afford to pay for it the 
price in money at which it is assessed on the Owner¬ 
ship Record. 

The clerk in the Ownership Record office could issue 
a certificate containing the name of the cash buyer 
and he would then become the lawful owner of the 
property. Many will claim that under this system of 
collecting taxes, property would continuously change 
from hand to hand and that the rich would bid oii or 


u 


I.EX FOllI. 


buy away the property of the poor. Let us examine 
this claim. 

Suppose that Brown owned a thousand dollar piece 
of property over and above the two thousand dollars 
exempted under the Homestead Exemption law. How 
would he act under such a law ? He would reason in 
this manner : “ I wish to retain possession of my prop¬ 
erty and, in order to prevent any one from buying it, 
Ill raise tlie valuation on the Ownership Record 
to twelve hundred dollars. Two per cent, (which is 
the average rate of taxation) on two hundred dollars 
extra valuation will amount to only four dollars per 
3 'ear. This four dollars is of little consequence to me, 
but it will compel another man to go down in his 
pocket for two hundred dollars more than my property 
is actually worth in order to gain possession of it.” 

When the Ownership Record and Self-Assessment 
laws are applied to the whole country there will be 
no more sucessful monopolizers, because each man will 
then be engaged in looking after his own property, 
and the value of all wealth within the United States 
will fall as the result of the destruction of all monopoly 
(3f wealth. The natural disposition of all mankind is 
to prefer his own home or Avealth to that of another- 
The insatiable greed for superfluous wealth in our 
people is engendered by the unjust distribution of 
wealth possible under our present system of collecting 
taxes. 

The Self-Assessment plan of determining value for 
assessment would force the payment of taxes on full 
value, and the collection of taxes on full value in¬ 
variably falls heaviest on the inactive rich, because in 
a competition for the possession of wealth the hard 


LEX FORI. 


45 


worker (wlio is generally the poor man when he has 
an incentive to work) can afford to pay taxes on a 
higher valuation than the inactive rich man, on ac¬ 
count of the fact that the latter cannot generally man¬ 
age a special quantity of wealth with as great advan¬ 
tage as the poor man (who has always carried the extra 
burden of excessive rent). The rich man has so many 
other things to engross his attention that he cannot 
devote as much time and attention to a given quantity 
of wealth (which is adapted to the employment of one 
man) as a poor man who is prepared to devote all his 
time and attention to the given quantity of wealth. 

The idea to be conveyed may be grasped through 
the following illustration : When a rich man owning 
ten hundred acres of soil and a poor man owning one 
hundred acres (each acre of both men’s land being 
equal in all things) enter into competition with each 
other, the poor man can afford to pay taxes on a 
higher valuation per acre than the rich man, because 
the poor man can obtain more products from each 
acre than the rich man, if both pay taxes on the full 
value of the machinery used. 

Nothing is so annoying to monopolists as the impo¬ 
sition of taxes on the full value of all wealth. The 
adoption of the Homestead Exemption, the Owner¬ 
ship Kecord and the Self-Assessment laws would 
equalize taxation, destroy monopoly and compel the 
big corporations and millionaire tax-dodgers to pay 
the taxes due the people. 

By taxing all value to the full amount by means 
of the Ownership Record and the Self-Assessment 
laws, the company or individual obtaining a franchise 
from a legislature could do the community no serious 


46 


LEX FORI. 


or permanent injury, because the value of the fran¬ 
chise would be displayed on the tax list or Ownership 
Eecord, and the corporation would thereby be com¬ 
pelled to contribute toward the public support in pro¬ 
portion to the value of its property, including the 
franchise obtained from the legislature. 

Some will offer as an objection to this Self-Assess¬ 
ment plan the assertion that people will under it be 
constantly struggling for each other’s property. Is this 
not the case under our present system ? Besides, the 
advantage to the people of making large value holders 
pay their full share of taxation would be more than 
ample compensation for any annoyance to the public 
as the result of transferring titles to property very 
frequentl3^ 

People Avould require but little experience to teach 
them that it is better to avoid quibbling about small 
differences in the estimation of value than to expose 
each other to the attempts of their neighbors to obtain 
certain property because of its undervaluation on 
the Ownership Eecord. The tendency would be to 
slightly overvalue so as to keep off the speculator. 

An unanswerable argument in favor of the Self-As¬ 
sessment plan is the fact that when watching the tax 
list is made the business of everybody who has an in¬ 
terest in the tax list, the public eye is always riveted 
on the Ownership Eecord, and as a natural con¬ 
sequence a class of tax list examiners would develop 
who would be very skillful in stopping tax-dodging by 
seeking for property undervalued on the tax list or the 
Ownership Eecord. 

On some of our horse cars is employed the principle 
of using the public eye to prevent the perpetration of 


LEX FOKI. 


47 


fraud or negligence. A dial which registers the num¬ 
ber of fares collected by the conductor is exposed to 
public view, and as a consequence the conductor is 
forced to register almost every fare. Turn the public 
gaze on the tax-dodger by means of the Ownership 
Record and Self-Assessment laws, and he will cease to 
dodge his taxes. 

Were this government to adopt these three laws, 
Homestead Exemption, Ownership Record and Self- 
Assessment laws, and impose taxation at an honest rate 
there would be little necessity of the government op¬ 
erating the railroads, telegraph lines, telephone wires 
etc., because under such laws the railroads and other 
corporations would contribute more and more to the 
public revenue as they became more and more profit¬ 
able, for the simple reason that the value of a railroad 
is in proportion to the income it pays its owners. 

Under these laws corporate property would be in the 
possession of a larger number of owners than is now 
the case and would not develop into the gigantic sys¬ 
tems of monopoly which now cover our land. 

Some will aflirm that all personal taxes whatsoever 
ought to be abolished. If those who believe in the ab¬ 
olition of personal taxes were able to logically define 
value they would perceive the inconsistency of rec¬ 
ommending the enactment of any law that would ex¬ 
empt personal property from taxation. 

While it is unquestionably difficult, under our present 
system of taxation, to collect taxes on the full value of 
chattels, it is also difficult to co'lect taxes on the full value 
of realty. If all taxes ought to be abolished on personal 
property because of the difficulty of collecting them or 
because of the tendency to degenerate the morals of the 


48 


LEX FORI. 


owners, all taxes on realty onght to be abolished be¬ 
cause of the same reasons. Nothing can be said of 
personal property taxation that cannot be said of realty 
taxation in some degree. If the owners of personal 
property evade their taxes by charging their debts 
against it, do not the mortgagees, who are the owners of 
the realty next to the State, evade the taxes which 
ought to fall on them ? 

As soon as a man learns exactly wUat value is, he 
abandons the tax “vagaries” so common in these times 
of political reformers. 

Value is an important imtitxdion (I can think of no 
term that will convey the idea more clearly) which is 
only slightly understood by our economists. 

Here is a definition which fits all value: The value 
of a thing is the purchasing poiver it confers on the owner 
of the thing. Sometimes the value of a thing increases 
as its utility increases. Sometimes it decreases as the 
utility increases. If the utility of shoes is increased 
tenfold and at the same time (the demand remaining 
the same ) their number is multiplied fifty-fold, we 
have an instance which demonstrates that the increase 
of the utility of a single pair of shoes tenfold has not 
prevented the decrease in their value. Scarcity has 
much to do with the increase in the value of things. 

Supply and demand are the important agencies 
which increase or decrease value, or, as frequently 
expressed “ Value depends on the difficulty to obtain 
and the desire to possess.” Value is the name of the 
largest generalization of which we have any knowledge 
in the world of exchanges. 

When we enact a law taxing value it is altogether dif¬ 
ferent from a law taxing realty or personal property. 


LEX FORI. 


49 


Kealty and personal property have value alike; the dif¬ 
ference is only in the quantity of value possessed by 
each. 

When taxes are imposed according to the value of a 
thing we have no concern about its material, shape, qual¬ 
ity or color. We only seek to compel the owner to pay 
in proportion to th.Q par chasing through 

the ownership of the thing of value. 

Value enables us to measure the ability of persons 
by the demand for their labor and talent, the scarcity 
of any article, the comfort of the people, etc. 

If the value of useful things is high, measured in 
money and commodity, it is very evident that the peo¬ 
ple can enjoy only less comfort ( because it is more dif¬ 
ficult to procure the useful things) than if the value of 
such useful things is low. When the value of things of 
utility is low the people can more easily administer to 
their want of the useful things and thereby enjoy more 
comforts. The greater the supply of things the less is 
their value, provided the demand does not increase. 
Things of value may become so abundant as to have no 
value but still possess great utility. 

Whenever a person talks about “intrinsic value,” 
“rental value,” “ market value,” “ exchange value,” “ com¬ 
modity value,” “ land value ” or of any qualified kind of 
value, we may safely conclude that such person does 
not understand very clearly just what value is. Value 
is without purchasmgpower, audit makes no 

difference what adjective is placed before the word 
“value” it is purchasing power only, and the idea will 
be as well conveyed by using the word value alone, 
without the assistance of any adjective, as by using 
any number of qualifying words. 


50 


LEX FOKI. 


The man who talks about the intrinsic value o a 
hat” conveys no more idea of an additional property 
of value than the man who talks simply of the “ value 
of a hat.” 

Value is simply purchasing power the whole world 
over, and there is only one kind of 'purchasing power. 
Value and utility are very frequently confounded, but 
they are decidedly different from each other. 

When the over-zealous “ one idea ” man attempts to 
distinguish the “ land ” value from the “ rental ” value 
of an acre of soil he undertakes an impossibility. 
When talking of “ rental ” value he refers to the value 
of an acre of soil by the year, and when of “ land ” 
value to the present value of the rent of an acre for all 
future years. In both instances the “rental” value 
or “ land ” value is simply value, or, in other words, 
the “ one idea ” man has reference to different quan¬ 
tities of purchasing power. What would the reader 
think of a man who talked about “ rental purchasing 
power,'' purchasmg power," “intrinsic purchas¬ 
ing power" p urchasing power," etc. 

The writer once believed that the value of land alone 
ought to bear the burden of taxation, and that the 
value of everything else ought to be exempt from tax¬ 
ation, because of his inability to observe the distinct 
difference between value and utility. Air has much 
utility, but in the world of exchanges has no value 
whatsoever. No quantity of air can be used to convey 
purchasing poxoer. The supply is too abundant. 

The value of one acre of soil for one year may 
be ten dollars, and for tv/enty years two hundred 
dollto. If a purchaser desires to buy outright 


LEX FORI. 


51 


the acre of soil the owner will ask him some¬ 
thing not much more or less than two or three 
hundred dollars, because buyer and seller generally 
figure the future rent or utility of an acre of soil for no 
longer term than that of twenty or thirty years. Con¬ 
sequently, when a person talks about “ rental ” value 
of land as something different from “ land ” value he 
makes the mistake of imagining that one year’s value 
of an acre of soil is different in quality from all future 
years’ value, while the only actual difference between 
the “rental” value of an acre of soil and the “land” 
value of an acre of soil is the difference in the quan¬ 
tity or number of future rents or future utility figured 
upon. 

Of course the advocate of exempting personal prop¬ 
erty from taxation will affirm that personal property 
ownership cannot be discovered as easily as realty 
ownership ; that realty is “ all out doors ” and cannot 
be concealed. This may be partly true under the 
present method of collecting taxes, but when the 
Homestead Exemption, the Ownership Eecord, and 
the Self-Assessment laws are carried into practice, the 
tax dodger, whether he is the owner of personal prop¬ 
erty or real property (provided either has value), will 
find himself so closely watched by his neighbors or 
the tax dodger detective (a class which will develop ) 
that he will pay his tax on full value without any at¬ 
tempt at “ dodging.” 

Against this system of taxation could not be brought 
the charge that now stands to the discredit of the 
present system viz: Under the present tax laws of our 
government provision is made for the relief of the 
citizen on whom taxes have been imposed unjustly. 




62 


LEX FORI. 


but no provision is made to guard against the pay¬ 
ment of too little taxation by sbme wealthy owners ; that 
is, the citizen who has been taxed too heavily can appeal 
to the courts, but the wealthy citizen who is taxed too 
lightly always avoids paying his just share as long as 
possible, and there is no law that imposes on him any 
penalty for so doing. 

My next task is to determine what rate of taxation 
ought to be imposed. The fixing of a specific rate in¬ 
volves the explanation of Smith’s Death Rate tax. The 
rate of taxation ought to be approximately ty:)0 per 
cent. 

The average death rate throughout the world, when 
conditions are normal, is approximately twenty per¬ 
sons to the thousand. In the course of fifty years the 
whole thousand will be dead on the average (counting 
a number of fifty-year periods) and a new thousand of 
persons will be on earth ready to use the wealth left 
by the old thousand. If two per cent, of all value is 
collected from the possessors of all value each year, 
in the course of fifty years all the value originally pos¬ 
sessed by the tax-payers at the time of the imposition 
of the first year’s tax, will have been gradually taken 
away from the original possessors, and in this manner 
returned to the government at the rate of two per 
cent, each year without producing a perceptible jar in 
public affairs. 

Two per cent, on the full value of everything would 
yield the Government all the revenue necessary to 
enable the construction of all the requisite improve¬ 
ments and to properly conduct public affairs without 
a deficit. 


LEX FORI. 


53 


Another reason for making the rate two per cent, is 
that the experience of governments, no matter what 
the form, has shown that when the centralization of 
wealth commences, in a period not much longer or 
shorter than fifty years, the saving, scheming, insati¬ 
able and unscrupulous persons own or possess almost 
everything worth owning unless they are restrained by 
society. 

Moses, the great law-giver, probably recognized this 
tendenc}’' when he ordered the return of all property 
to the original owners once in every fifty years. [See 
Leviticus, chapter xxv.] 

Still another reason may be assigned for fixing the 
rate at two per cent.: If a government or an individual 
attempts to take, annually, more than two per cent, of 
full value from the users of wealth, it is only a ques¬ 
tion of time when the users will be bankrupt and dis¬ 
cover that it is unprofitable to use the wealth (take 
out their living) and pay annually more than two. per 
cent, on full value. If the persons owning great quan¬ 
tities of wealth, desire to obtain the greatest net rev¬ 
enue from their possessions of wealth, they could not 
devise any better method for so doing than to let it 
out to the persons best qualified for using or managing 
^such wealth at a two per cent, rent on the full value, 
provided the Ownership Eecord and the Self-Assess¬ 
ment laws are employed in estimating the value of the 
wealth. 

In the preceding pages it has been demonstrated 
that a proper method of voting is indispensable to 
carrying into practice any policy. The necessity also 
of collecting taxes on full value and permitting no tax 
dodging, has been emphasized. It is now in order to 


54 


LEX EOEI. 


explain how value can be properly and fairly measured. 

When any person or persons in a community have 
the power of increasing or decreasing the money price 
of wealth by increasing or decreasing the supply of 
money when they please, it is impossible to collect 
taxes on the full value of the wealth with any justice, 
because such money would be an unjust meas¬ 
urer of value. Such a juggled currency would unjustly 
measure the value of a house as higher or lower next 
year, when in fact the value might be unchanged. 
This would be the case with all property possessing 
value. 

With Smith’s “Just Money” it is possible to meas¬ 
ure value accurately. Under it the value or price 
juggler can be prevented from increasing or decreas¬ 
ing prices in accordance with his desire to buy or sell, 
or lend or borrow. 

It is only by the means of an honest currency, such 
as Just Money, that the interests of buyer and seller, 
lender and borrower, can be treated without any in¬ 
justice to either party to the contract measured by 
money. 

JUST MONEY. 

At present our country is engaged in a general dis-^ 
cussion of the financial problem. So-called financiers 
of various schools, “ free-silverism,” “ bi-metallism,” 

“ honest moneyism,” “monometallism,” “greenback- 
ism,” etc., advocate much truth and much not truth; 
yet the greatest confusion would be created in all of 
these schools, except that of “ greenbackism,” by 
simply asking the question “ Can any of you logically 
define a dollar ?” 


LEX EORI. 


55 


Only the greenbacker could make any successful 
attempt, and he is thrown into confusion when asked 
the two following questions : “How much money 
capita do you consider necessary for circulation among 
the people ? ” and when he answers (if he does) by 
mentioning a specific amount, he should be asked 
“What is your reason for fixing it at a specific 
amount? ’ 

Some greenbackers will fix the amount per capita 
necessary for circulation, at fifty dollars, sixty dollars, 
one hundred dollars, &c.; but they can give no good 
reason for fixing upon such specific amount. They 
will tell you that France has sixty dollars per capita 
and enjoys more prosperity than any other nation; 
that the United States was not affiicted with business 
stagnation and industrial depression, when it had 
fifty dollars or more per capita in circulation. 

These answers of the greenbacker are acceptable as 
proof that more currency would relieve the debtor class 
and impart an incentive to industry, by advancing 
prices; but they will not suffice in replying to the 
question as to the specific amount. The greenbacker 
can give no sensible reason for fixing the amount per 
capita at a definite figure. If his reasons for increas- 
ng the circulation are his only reasons, he is forced 
into a “corner” by the following argument; if in¬ 
creasing the currency in the United States from its 
present per capita circulation to fifty, sixty or one 
hundred dollars per capita^ effects the country much 
good, (by increasing prices, reducing debts, &c.) it 
follows, as a natural consequence, that increasing it to 
one hundred and fifty dollars, two hundred, three 


56 


LEX FOEI. 


hundred, five hundred, or one thousand dollars fer 
capita, will effect an extra amount of good. 

If the greenbacker admits the truth of this argu¬ 
ment, he will sooner or later discover the disastrous 
consequence of a constantly increasing money. The 
infiation of any currency so far used, by any na¬ 
tion, has invariably resulted in a contraction of the 
currency at some time. This is because an increase 
of the currency, causes all things measured by the 
currency to increase in price in proportion to the in¬ 
crease of the currency. 

When prices are at the hlgh&st and the volume of 
currency is largest, a money stringency is inevitable 
(unless the volume of money is continually increased) 
because the increase in the volume of the money will 
be invariably foreseen and calculated by most persons 
having anything to sell or having control of other 
value than that of money, and an increase in the money 
price of all value will follow, the effects of which will 
be equivalent to a contraction of the currency. 

As soon as the greenbacker perceives this point, he 
is forced to admit that the only way to avoid such a 
money stringency is to increase the supply of money 
more or less gradually, but the increase must be con¬ 
tinued forever, and such increase will be beyond the 
calculation of any party to a contract. 

The greenbacker must also admit that the effects of 
money cornering or hoarding, cannot be counteracted 
only by constantly increasing the supply of money. 
If he admits that his paper money must be continu¬ 
ally increased in volume, he cannot avoid conceding 
that under his system of money, the prices of all 


LEX FORI. 


57 


commodities will at some time or another become 
ridiculously large in this country, as compared with 
the prices of the same commodities in other countries, 
and that contracts, extending over a long or short 
period of time, will invariably result in an injury to 
the receiver of money, because the purchasing power 
of the dollar will be continually decreasing and no 
party to a contract will be able to accurately calculate 
the quantity of the decrease. 

The “ gold bug” and his theory is eliminated when 
asked “Why do you select a specific number of grains 
of gold for the composition of the gold dollar? Why 
do you select twenty-five and eight-tenths grains of 
gold 900 fine, in preference to twenty and eight-tenths 
grs. 900 fine or ten and eight-tenths grs. 900 fine? Why 
are gold coins in this country only nine-tenths pure 
gold while in England they are eleven-twelfths pure 
gold ? ” 

He may reply that the English pound is the basis of 
our dollar and that the English put 12B.27447 grains 
of gold in their unit, which is approximately five times 
the number of grains put in our gold dollar. But there 
is no better reason for fixing at a specific number of 
grains of gold for the English pound than there is for 
fixing at a specific number of grains for our gold 
dollar. 

Ask the silver advocate why he prefers to have 
exactly 412 J grains of silver standard fine, in the silver 
dollar to 212J or 312J grains of silver. 

He may answer that 4121 grains in the silver dollar 
are in conformity with the number of grains put in 
the coins of most countries of the world. 


58 


LEX FORI. 


Then ask him why the ratio of 10 of silver to 1 of 
gold or 5 of silver to 1 of gold in making silver dollars, 
will not answer the purpose of money in this country 
better than 15 or 16 of silver to 1 of gold. 

The silver man has no more reason for fixing at a spe¬ 
cific number of silver grains, in the silver dollar, than 
has the gold advocate for fixing at a specific number of 
gold grains in the gold dollar, or the greenbacker for 
fixing at a specific number of paper dollars for his 
capita circulation. 

Having shown that the most important of money 
schools, viz : “ greenbackism,” “ goldism” and “ silver- 
ism” can offer no good reason for fixing at a definite 
number of gold grains for the gold dollar, or a definite 
number of silver grains for the silver dollar, or a defi¬ 
nite number of paper dollars per capita as the basis 
of the greenback money, my next task is to logically 
define a dollar in accordance with the evolution o 
money up to the present time. 

A DOLLAR 

1. A dollar is a money unit estahlished hj a govern¬ 
ment. 

2. Its most important function is that of measuidng 
value. 

3. It has other functions, viz: those of discharging 
debt and facilitatbig exchange. 

4. It should he a full legal tender. 

5. It should fluctuate as little as p>ossihle in purchas¬ 
ing POWER. 


LEX FOKI. 


59 


6. It should he composed of material having the least 
value as a commodity. 

7. It shoidd have as a basis the labor unit. 

Parts of this definition will not be questioned. The 
first three sentences are in the indicative mood 
because dollars already exist which possess the attri¬ 
butes mentioned. The last four sentences are in the 
potential mood, because a fully developed dollar has 
not yet been issued by any government. They align 
the path on which the American dollar must evolve. 

All greenbackers are familiar with this definition, 
excepting the sentence referring to the Labor Unit. 
Concerning this they will invariably ask for explana¬ 
tion. 

While the financiers of all schools recognize that 
there must be some unit employed as a b isis of all 
money—that we must have something with which to 
measure value, bearing the same relation to value that 
a surveyor’s chain does to land measurement, or the 
relation of an ounce weight to the weight of a ham— 
none of them has yet devised a unit which satisfac¬ 
torily answers the purpose. 

The gold jugglers in this country have tried 24.75 
grains, 23.20 grains and 23.22 grains pure gold in their 
yellow dollars; the silver men have used 412J grains, 
416 grains, 420 grains and 384 grains standard silver 
in their silver dollars; but the varying purchasing 
power of these quantities of either gold or silver has 
worked great injury to the great body of our citizens, 
either as creditors or debtors, or buyers or sellers. 

Some financiers believe that labor ought to have some 
connection with the unit of money, but they are not 


60 


LEX FORI. 


very clear in tlieir idea of what that connection ought 
to be. 

The Westerner or Southerner, because of his being 
principally in the debtor class as well as an intelli¬ 
gent American, has learned more about money than 
any other class of people on earth. While he knows 
that money ought to be issued by the government 
only, composed of nothing but paper, and while he 
believes it ought to be issued at a fixed 
number of dollars capita^ he has no very definite 
idea of the exact number of dollars per cap>ita that 
ought to be issued, nor has the Westerner or Southerner 
any clear idea of how the “ schemes ” of the money- 
cornerer can be thwarted or how every dollar can be 
made to retain approximately the same unfluctuating 
p urchasin g power. 

Too much importance cannot be attached to the 
proper understanding of the definition of a dol¬ 
lar already given in italics. 

Nearly all students of finance will have no hesitation 
about approving of this definition with the exception 
of the last two sentences. 

The sentence, '‘'‘It should he composed of material 
having the least value as a commodity^' is justified on 
the ground that a dollar composed of a dollar’s worth 
of commodity would be used for general purposes 
when the supply of such commodity became scarce 
enough. For example: If the United States made a 
dollar by putting in it a dollar’s worth of iron, when 
iron became scarce in any foreign country, the specu¬ 
lators would melt up our iron dollars (because they 
contained as much iron as could be bought for a dol- 


LEX FOm. 


61 


lar in a jnnk shop) for use as a commodity in those 
countries in which the supply of iron was compara¬ 
tively scarce ; whereas if our government made a dol¬ 
lar out of one cent’s worth of iron, such dollar would 
pass in this country for a dollar and enable the pos¬ 
sessor to procure for it in the junk shop probably ten 
or more pounds of iron, and consequently no foreign 
speculator could afford to melt up a dollar containing 
a cent’s worth of iron on account of the quantity of 
iron contained in such dollar. 

Putting the least amount of commodity having value 
in a dollar would increase the tendency of the dollar’s 
remaining at home in this country ; putting the most 
amount of commodity having value in the dollar 
would induce speculators to send such a dollar wher¬ 
ever the commodity composing it is scarcest and most 
valuable. 

The dollar having the least value as a commodity 
would stay at home and run the American financial 
machine, and not become scarce whenever there is a 
little excitement abroad in financial circles. Such a 
dollar would make every man having possession of it, 
take an interest in the preservation and perpetuation 
of the government in order to preserve the value of his 
dollar. 

With all nations doing business on a gold basis, a 
panic in one of them produces a disastrous jar in all ; 
but if each nation did business with different kinds of 
money having the least value as a commodity and 
depending on the stamp of each nation for ninety-nine 
per cent, or more of its value, no such disastrous jar 
would be felt by all nations when some large financial 
institution in any nation became bankrupt. 


62 


LEX FORI. 


Paper is the commodity that has the least value 
as a material with which to make money, and with the 
assistance of the government decree makes the best 
money. It would not be utilized in the arts or indus¬ 
tries, as gold and silver now are, and its supply re¬ 
quired for money purposes would remain undisturbed. 

The sentence It should he based on the Lahor Unit'' 
is explained as follows: 

The advocate of the ‘‘ per capita ” currency cannot 
tell how his per capita money can be employed and 
not be subject to the manipulations of the money cor- 
nerer. In explaining the system of money under which 
there can be no money-cornering, the ultimate lines of 
all currency development is plainly shown. 

Human labor is, on the average, the same to-day, 
relatively, as it was in any past generation, and ever 
will be relatively the same. That is, if a professional 
man’s labor has increased or decreased in purchasing 
power to-day, as compared with its purchasing power of 
any past generation, the unskilled laborer bears the 
same relation to the professional man (whatever the 
increase or decrease), in this generation that he did 
in any past generation. 

Labor can distribute itself in conformity with nat¬ 
ural law with greater ease than any commodity can be 
distributed throughout the social world, and conse¬ 
quently, as a uniform basis of a non-fluctuating currency, 
is better than gold, silver, or any other commodity, be¬ 
cause commodities can be more easily cornered than 
any kind of labor. An extraordinarily rich man possess¬ 
ed of great intelligence, provided he could live for sev- 
«eral centuries, might obtain control of all the gold, sil- 




LEX FOKI. 


63 


ver or copper in tlie world; but lie never could hope to 
obtain control of all the labor. 

These are some of the reasons for using labor as the 
basis of Just Money. 

Now arises the question, “ How can labor be made 
the basis of a currency that cannot be cornered and 
which will vary the least in purchasing power as com- 
liared with any other currency in the w^orld ? ” 

By employing a system of book-keeping governed by 
the condition of labor, is the answer. The system is 
explained as follows : The Secretary of the Treasury 
of the United States is to be the book-keeper. It shall 
be his duty, by the means of daily gathered statistics, 
to learn what are the average wages of the non-capital¬ 
ists (a class of men^ whose debts equal their assets, or 
who possess only the clothes on their back and live 
from hand to mouth) in the chief commercial centers 
of the United States ; that is, in all cities with a pop¬ 
ulation of one hundred thousand or more. 

Should the Secretary of the Treasury discover that 
the average wages of the non-capitalists, in such cities 
throughout the United States, is two dollars per day, 
it shall be his duty to keep the average wages of the 
non-capitalists at two dollars per day in the following 
manner: As soon as the Secretary perceives the wages 
of the non-capitalists falling below two dollars per day, 
it shall be his duty to issue paper money in payment 
for labor on public schools, public highways, public 
parks etc., ordered by the Secretary, until he has 
added to the currency sufficient money to increase the 
wages of the non-capitalists until they again amount to, 
on the average, two dollars per day. When the Secre- 


64 


LEX FORI. 


tary finds the wages of the non-capitalists rising above 
two dollars day, it should be his duty to contract 
the currency by retaining the money that comes into 
the treasury by the way of taxation, and by discontinu¬ 
ing his public works. 

In this manner the Secretary can thwart the schemes 
of the money cornerer; because shortly after the money 
cornerer commences to hoard money for the purpose 
of increasing its power, his contraction or 

locking up of the currency will be refiected in the wages 
of the non capitalists, which will fall below two dollars 
per day as shown by the average Avages of the non- 
capitalissts recorded in the Secretary’s books; then it 
shall be the duty of the Secretary to start more public im¬ 
provements and pay for the Avork in fresh paper money, 
until the average Avages of the non-capitalists goes up 
again to two dollars per day. In this manner the Sec¬ 
retary can keep the aA^erage Avages of the non-capitalists 
at two dollars per day approximately, not going but a 
few cents above or below two dollars per day at any 
time. It is immaterial how many dollars is fixed upon 
by the Secretary as the average daily wages of the non¬ 
capitalists. Whether the wages daily is three, four^ 
or five dollars per day is of no account, proAuded the 
amount selected remains the average Avages of the non¬ 
capitalists per day. 

The point to be emphasized is that the non-capital¬ 
ist’s wages must be kept at the sum fixed upon as his 
average daily wages ever after; so that men may enter 
into contracts and not have any injury done either 
party to a contract, as the result of a change in the 
purchasing power of money. 


LEX FORI. 


65 


Keeping the average wages of the non-capitalists at 
a particular figure per day (whether the amount is one 
or five dollars per day) does not imply either high c ■ 
low wages to the non-capitalists, as one dollar i r 
day would be exactly the same in effect and as g d 
as five dollars per day, because the purchasing pi mr 
of one dollar in the former case would be exactly 
equal to that of five dollars in the latter case. 

When the daily wages of the non-capitalist is fixed 
at a particular sum per day, the value of an average 
day’s labor at any one time is exactly equal to the 
value of an average day’s labor at any other time, and 
whatever price in money is paid for an average day’s 
labor (that is to say, the average price in Just Money 
at any time) that price per day in money is equal in 
value to the average price of a day’s labor paid at any 
other time. 

In order to compensate the debtor class for the ex¬ 
tortion to which they have submitted at the hands of 
the creditor class for the past thirty years, it would 
be advisable to have the Secretary of the Treasury 
issue paper money in the manner described until the 
average wages of the non-capitalists would rise to five 
dollars per day, and then ever after keep their average 
daily wages at that figure. 

It is true that the Secretary could not keep the 
average daily wages of the non-capitalists at a definite, 
exact sum any better than a steam engineer could 
keep the steam in his boiler, as shown by a steam 
gauge, at an exact number of pounds, but he could 
keep their wages so near a specific sum as to make 
hardly a perceptible difference to the non-capitalist. 


LEX FOlil. 


()() 

or any other person who was gauging his contracts by 
the average price paid non-capitalists per day. 

The Secretary, being supplied with a sufficient num¬ 
ber of paper dollars, and being invested with the 
authority to make any public improvement, would be 
prepared to increase or decrease the supply of money 
when necessary, as reflected in the average wages of 
the non-capitalist. 

The probability is that the Secretary would never 
be required to contract the circulating medium, as all 
currency tends to contract itself by the means of 
money lost, money hoarded, money worn out, etc. 
This system of currency would relegate money to its 
proper office as hereinbefore defined, and destroy in it 
those properties which make it more cogent for evil 
than any other material on earth. 

It is the constantly increasing purchasing of 

money that enables it (the creature of the people) to 
dominate its creators, and its owners to exact unjust 
and outrageous tribute from the enterprising and 
energetic. 

With such a currency as Just Money, which would 
show the distress of the non-capitalistic class, there 
would be no necessity for making any special provi¬ 
sion for the welfare of the capitalist class, as they are 
invariably (because of their superior ability and fore¬ 
sight) well able to take care of themselves. The non¬ 
capitalist class is the large body of people at the base 
of the social pyramid, and a currency that could do 
this large body no injury could not be used to hurt 
the interests of the keen, saving and thoughtful persons, 
who generally constitute the capitalist class. 


LEX FOUL 


()7 

There is no currency on earth purchasing 

power is not increased by hoarding it, or by the 
money lost or destroyed every year. By the means 
of Just Money, based on the Labor Unit, no money 
could be hoarded, locked up, or destroyed without 
(population remaining the same) reflecting the de¬ 
crease in the supply, through a fall in the wages of 
the non-capitalists; because any decrease in the 
volume of money (population remaining the same) 
would leave a smaller amount of money capita, for 
circulation, and the wages of the non-capitalist could 
not avoid showing the decrease. 

Such a money would enable us to determine the 
scarcity or abundance of any commodity by its price 
in Just Money on account of the fact that the supply 
of money would always be relatively the same, and 
any variation in the money price of a commodity 
would be caused by an increase or decrease in the 
supply of the commodity. 

With our present United States money we are un¬ 
able to tell, when the price of wheat in money goes up 
or down, whether the supply of wheat is great or small, 
by the price of wheat in U. S. money, because the U. S. 
money, by which the wheat is to-day measured by 
price, is constantly changing in supply and the fluctu¬ 
ation in price, according to U. S. money, may have 
been caused by a corresponding decrease or increase 
in the volume of money, and not by a decrease or in¬ 
crease in the supply of wheat. 

To illustrate : Suppose that one bushel of wheat is 
to-day worth two bushels of corn, and one year from to¬ 
day one bushel of wheat is worth only one bushel of corn: 


68 


LEX FORI. 


from the worth of either, measured by the other, it is 
impossible to determine whether the corn or the 
wheat has increased or decreased in supply. By ob¬ 
serving the jDrice of either, measured in U. S. dollars, 
the result is little better, because the supply of the 
dollars may have been increased or decreased. 

Money should be like a looking-glass, which would 
reflect the supply of any commodity by showing the 
price of the commodity, which price would be small 
or large, as the commodity’s supply would be large or 
small, provided the demand remained equal. 

Some persons will offer as an objection to Just 
Money that it will place too much power in the Sec¬ 
retary of the Treasury. It would if the system of 
Perpetual Voting wwe not used to control the Secre¬ 
tary. 

The Secretary of the Treasury should be elected by 
the people and controlled by the means of Perpetual 
Voting, the same as any other officer elected by the 
people. 

A money which would fluctuate so little mpurchas- 
ing powei^ as Just Money, could not cause the buyer or 
seller, the lender or borrower, or any party to a con¬ 
tract to be adjusted on a money basis, enough injury to 
be realized. This would be the only kind of money 
which could not be cornered. With money of this 
kind it would be impossible for any class of money 
savers or accumulators to exercise with their money 
the power which is to-day possessed by the money 
owners in this country. People would then engage 
generally in producing the good things of life andaban- 


/ 


LEX FORI. 


69 


don the practice, now so prevalent in our country, of 
grabbing wealth and money instead of earning it. 

Men who now wax rich by cornering money would 
under the Just Money system find themselves compara¬ 
tively powerless, and they would be forced to employ 
their talents at some vocation more serviceable to 
humanit}". 

Many persons will affirm that a paper dollar based 
on no gold or silver can have little or no value. To such 
persons the writer would say: We always owe the gov¬ 
ernment taxes (should we pay this year’s taxes we owe 
next year’s taxes, and should we pay next year’s taxes 
we owe the following year’s taxes, etc.,) and whatever ma¬ 
terial the government receives inpayment of taxes, that 
material becomes possessed of some of the properties 
of money and always has value. 

Paper money received in payment of taxes is alto¬ 
gether different from a note issued by an individual. 
The individual must at some time redeem his note with 
money; but the government redeems its paper money 
every time it is received in payment of taxes. 

Another vital difference between the note of an indi¬ 
vidual and paper money, issued by a government, is 
that the government can force an individual to take its 
paper money ; but the individual, who issues his prom¬ 
issory note, cannot force an individual to take his 
note. 

The prevention of vote selling, tax dodging and money 
cornering has now been explained. PERPETUAL 
VOTING, DEATH RATE TAX with the subordinate 
laws, Homestead Exemption, Ownership Record, and 
Self-Assessment and JUST MONEY must all be 


70 


LEX FOllI. 


adopted by our people if a substantial cure of the evils 
now afflicting the country is desired. 

By the means of value must our lands and other kinds 
of wealth be sold or rented to our people ; because rent¬ 
ing and selling the wealth of this country by the mean^ 
of value is the best means of which the human brain 
has as yet conceived; but value cannot be fairly and 
properly taxed or fairly and properly measured, with¬ 
out employing the Self-Assessment law, the Ownership 
Kecord law, the Death Bate Tax law and the Just 
Money system. Nor can any or all of these laws be 
carried into practice without Perpetual Voting, as such 
a system of voting is absolutely indispensable when 
the people desire their public officials to comply fully 
with any law and enforce it to the letter. 

Each one of the laws herein described is essential to 
the putting into practice of the theory of this govern¬ 
ment. 

Perpetual Voting Avould make sovereigns of the peo¬ 
ple in practice as they are now in theory, and force our 
officers to appeal to the people as now is the case with 
the British Parliament; the Homestead Exemption 
law would make it impossible for the creditor to hound 
the debtor beyond a certain limit (N. Y. State has a 
homestead exemption law for fifteen-hundred dollar 
homes; but such homesteads are subject to sale for 
non-payment of taxes), as is now the purpose of 
some of our statute laws; the Ownership Eecord law 
would do with all value what we now do with real 
property, viz., compel the recording of titles in or¬ 
der to perfect the ownership as against all private 
parties; and the penalty of forfeiture imposed under 


/ 


LEX Eom. 


71 


this law for not recording property of yalne would he 
exactly similar to the present practice of this govern¬ 
ment in dealing with smugglers when caught in their 
attempts to dodge import taxes: the Self-Assessment 
aw would do, only more effectively, what our assessors 
now profess (because assessors are now supposed to 
be influenced, when determining the value of property 
by what any citizen is willing to give for it) to do. 
The DEATH RATE TAX on full value would do 
what we thought we had done in this country when 
we abolished the laws of entail and primogeniture, 
viz., prevented the amassing of great estates in the 
hands of one family; and the system of JUST MONEY 
would do what the national banks are supposed to 
do and what the Secretary of the Treasury always 
has done, viz., relieve the money market by putting 
out new money; the chief difference being that the 
Secretary in the past has only attempted to relieve the 
financial distress of the Wall street speculators, where¬ 
as JUST MONEY would relieve the financial dis¬ 
tress of the whole people. 

Each of these laws would assist in making actual prac¬ 
tice what is now the theory of this government. What 
our government is supposed to strive to do, in part, the 
adoption of these laws, viz: PERPETUAL VOTING, 

HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION, OWNEKSHIP RECOKD, SELF-ASSESS¬ 
MENT, DEATH RATE TAX and JUST MONEY laws 
would do in full. 

Throughout this country can be found many persons 
who readily recognize the importance of having an 
honest method of expressing the people’s will, an 
honest method of taxation, or an honest method of 


72 


LEX FORI. 


measuring value; but, when a person who perceives 
the importance of having all of the three methods and 
their inseparable relation, is sought he is not so read¬ 
ily found. Persons who can carry one idea at a time 
are numerous, but those who can carry several are 
much less so. 

But one more point and this work is finished. Cur¬ 
rency under the JUST MONEY system is the only 
thing of value that ought not to be taxed, excepting 
the value exempt under the Homestead Exemption 
law. This little book is now concluded with a recapit¬ 
ulation that will keep before the mind of the reader 
what has been previously explained. 


PERPETUAL VOTING, JUST MONEY, 

DEATH RATE TAX. 


AUXILIARY LAWS. 

Homestead Exemption, Ownership Record, Self- 
Assessment. 


j^.ddress, 

Thomas J. Sandfoed, 
No. 120 Broadway, 
N. Y. City. 


/ 





PRICE 25 CENTS. 



HOW TO PREVENT VOTE SELLING, TAX 
DODGING AND MONEY CORNERING. 


BY 

THOMAS J. SANDFORD. 


NEW YORK. 
1895. 



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